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In Depth with Xavier Pinon: Cost Control

One of the key reasons to why manufacturers are flocking to Formula E is cost control. With Formula E being 1/16th of the price to go racing in Formula One. It is easy to see why manufacturers are choosing Formula E.

However, DS Performance Director Xavier Mestelan Pinon explains to us that cost control in Formula E is essential, but there are still a number of areas that the sport needs to improve to ensure manufacturers stay in the sport.

Cost Control

“Cost control depends on the return on investment,” stated Pinon. “Currently, for me, Formula E is an excellent series, but it is still a start up.

“If the sport grows up as we expect. Of course, the costs will go up, but the return of investment should go up so the balance should be fine. Generally, when cost control starts circulating around the paddocks, it’s because the return on investment is low,” explained Pinon.

Stability

Pinon also believes the sport needs to provide more stability to the manufacturers. He explains that the season four calendar may feature no cities from the Inguaral calendar, which can put off manufacturers.

“We need to make the sport is as strong as possible,” explained Pinon. “We need to have more stability in the calendar. We have had so many new cities join the calendar which has been great for the sport, but no so good for the teams.

“Like London, we have it in season one and two and now it was gone, and that’s the same for most cities. For us, we need to have more stability in the calendar.

“For us as teams and manufacturers, we need to have more stability in the calendar for the series grow further. We want to have iconic races that have been on the calendar since the beginning.

“So if the series can’t find stability the cost control will go up which will start to make the series more challenging for manufacturers,” added Pinon.

Fanboost

Pinon would also like to see the current fanboost system improved. As the teams are still unsure about whether the voting system is fair, despite the changes Formula E have made to improve its vulnerabilities.

“Fanboost has been very good for the sport. However, we need to still work on it. We are still unsure on its security, so we know that it’s a fair vote and not being done by robots which we have seen in the past. This is some small details that need to fix, but we can improve this together,” said Pinon.